Sunday, October 16, 2005

its alive!

The famous words uttered by the professor,
when the monster, frankenstein, is zapped by
lightning and brought to life.

The two headed monster I can say wasnt my
creation. As hideous as it may seem, it doesnt
seem to be running too hot at the moment.
Which i dont really understand, how can 2
people who are patient and smart, and
attractive (tho irrelevant in online poker)
with some assistance by me, be not travelling
better ?!

Sometimes i seem to have the effect that I can create
enthusiasm for people to play poker, only for me
not to properly prepare them and they dont really
succeed as well as they might. Luckily with my
group of friends, we all got into it at the same
time, so it wasnt my fault, entirely ...

The classic example, which wasnt poker but blackjack,
was when i introudced nai's housematest in melbourne
to the counting strategy and charts that you should
be using when playing blackjack. A week after I left,
they went to the crown with photocopied charts from my
books, maxed out their credit cards, down a heap
and were receiving calls by one of their dads late at
night. Arggh.

After leaving London staying with Mitch, all his housemates
had party poker installed on their machines, and were playing
online and sometimes live. Thankfully mitch won some money
and stopped.

Then there was the episode with my cousin, where he
was banned from the internet after his parents found
him playing online poker. Thankfully it was a free-roll,
but i had showed him how to play poker just 2 days before.
He was 15. Unfortunately I havent seen the end of this
episode, coz I was over there for dinner yesterday, and
now he was playing for money ! His parents didnt seem
to care coz he said he won $10 in a free-roll , but that
was kind of fabricated. Anyway hes run the $10 into $100+.
Its hard to be so discouraging, when he is doing well.
I mean thats pretty impressive really, he barely knows
much about the game, and he beating the lower limits. But
what am i saying, he is 15, he isnt suppose to be
playing ! Wat the hell is going on. Then he mentioned
how another person at his school, was up to $10K ,
not sure how much he started with, and now had lost
it all.
me: so he is older than u, right ?
cousing: nah, he is actually younger...

Wat !! 14 year old kids playing with 10K bankrolls
and flushing it away. Which raises the question, who am
i playing against? When i play live at the casino, you
can see the idiots you are playing against. I mean i dont
have too man qualms about winning against people in general,
especially people who are looking for some fun/ who have
money. But what about people who are playing with pension
money.

At least at the higher limits, surely these people have
money. Or are they addicts , playing beyond their means?
Or are they 14 year old school kids riding a hot streak??
May be if you lose 10K when you are 14, you will be better
preopared for life, but may be you will just become
a degenerate gambler. Thankfully my cousin has some
money management skills. As he plans to take out $50 everytime,
he gets to $100. So he has already cashed out $50. 15
year olds cashing checks from poker sites doesnt sit right.
But then i was about to tell him, about pokersouce, etc.
Luckily im not completely reckless.

So I guess you have to ask yourself some questions when
playing poker.
1) Do you enjoy playing poker ? - If yes then playing occasionally
within your limits, would seem to be sensible advice.
2) Do you win at the game ? - No, and you still enjoy playing
the game ? Hmmm well, then you should definately play within
your limitations. If you really want to improve you should
seek help, i can probably help, but perhaps you should be
just a recreational player.
- Yes i win at the game. Well if thats the case then
you have more options. You shouldnt quit your job, and
may be just supplement your regular income with you
poker winnings. Ok i did the opposite but im not normal.
- If you win at the game and you don't enjoy it, then
you probably should find some other way to spend you time.

3) How do you spend your winnings ? - If you are a true
winning player, you potentially can make a lot of money,
or at least more than your day job and in a lot less
time. But i think there has to be a goal to use the
money responsibly. Most poker players will just spend
on crazy things, or on playing more poker. There is
no money management for a lot of people. There are kids
in their 20s with too much money at their disposal,
with no real interests other than making more money,
and as such are completeley out of control. When I
was in London i met a couple of these type of people,
winning 100 of thousands in a week , losing it all back
borrowing some money working it up and then repeating
this cycle. Reading some of the greenstein book, is
refreshing. Here you have a top poker player, who spends
his money on something worthwhile, helping kids in
under priveleged countries . While his ideals are
beyond the average person, it is good to know there are
people out there like that, who are poker players, but
in someway you can aspire to. And it becomes understandable
how such a consumate professional like ivey can look up to
someone like Greenstein.

Its 10.42am on a Monday morning , and ive made close to twice
what i would have made in a week at my old job.(I was underpaid
at my last job, well not really brad did most of it). And who
knows whether i will be up at the end of the week, but it is
starting to dawn on me, there is some responsibility on
poker players to do something good, whether the pursuit
of something nobler or in my case also making movies. You
cant shirk the responsibility.

A poker player doesnt really add any value to society by
playing. Poker on tv is entertaining too some extent, but
really its a negative sum equation. Where money is slowly
filtered out by casinos and large organisations like party
poker, and the rest of the money is redistributed.

I guess in some ways it would have been good to have someone
traveling down a similar path, coz the younger tournament
players seem to have others with them to discuss stuff,
but im happy my friends are doing better things with their
lives!

- even tho my door is open for 101 lessons if you need help,
beware wat u want :) !

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh finally comments are available, how about that....

I think it should be asked is poker a means or an end, same with work in general. Usually it's only a means like most people, and the end or the final product of receipt would fall somewhere along these lines:

a) Good Health
b) Stable family
c) Financial Security
d) Good friends
e) Helping those less fortunate than yourself
f) World Peace
g) Financial Independence (the ability to do what you wish with money never being an issue)

insert inner peace, and change order if need be, remember there is a path that we follow with a goal at the end, you don't want to fall inlove with the journey and not make destination!!

:)

10:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you're probably right that it doesn't contribute or create much.

maybe you can donate winnings to Gambler Anonymous and help some of the people you take money off? is there a point to this? maybe you should just take their money

7:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Define your political stance!

Capitalist? (for money and progression), Liberal (salvation, conservation and family) or Labour (the working class blue collar)

Its tough to find something that says who you are or which is even close to representing oneself.

People whom have a great skill or great wealth come to realisation that money isn't everything at the height of either their wealth or fame when they feel they have everything but complete happiness.

"Getting a step up can come from a helping stranger, but the real step up comes when you help the stranger step up".

9:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

�Qui�n dijo que

9:31 PM  

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